Aiden remained on the ground, taking measured breaths every few seconds. His heart was still beating, trying to wash away any residual pain left from the integration process. In the meantime, he began the process of exploring the system.
[Status Menu]
[Name: Aiden Valero]
[Race: Outworlder]
[Age: 21]
[Rank: Unawakened]
[Crest: Unformed]
[Shard Slots: 0 / 4]
[Class: —]
[Title: Seeker of the Last Shard]
[Location: Temple of the Shattered Sky]
--
[Attributes]
[Body: Null]
[Mind: Null]
[Soul: Null]
[Instinct: Null]
--
[Traits]
[Scriptseer]
[Cognitive Anchor]
[System Interference]
[Displacement Instinct]
--
[Active Quest]
[Quest Name: A New Beginning]
[Status: Complete]
[Reward: System Integration]
--
Several screens appeared in front of Aiden, each with a distinct function. The entire system felt like a game, similar to ones he played in his original world. It made things easier for him to understand, but harder to accept.
This feels… absurd.
Pain still leaked from his chest, like a vase broken under the heat of the furnace. It was unbearable beneath his skin —his own body attempting to flee him. Nonetheless, it proved he wasn't dreaming.
As the pain began to die down, Aiden tried to rise. His body felt unfamiliar, like his own limbs borrowed from a stranger. The cold bricks beneath him felt more familiar than his own body.
The altar was shining with lights, still reacting to the words he uttered. Aiden knew that something bigger was coming, and it made his skin crawl. His hands trembled as his heart beat erratically in his chest.
"You don't look afraid," said a voice from above him. Aiden flinched as he raised his head to the sky to see a figure descending. She looked sculpted from moonlight. Blonde hair, fair skin — perfect and terrible. Her large ethereal wings folded behind her back as her feet touched the altar. Aiden was not charmed, but terrified of her arrival.
"Who are you?" he asked, with a voice cracking in apprehension.
"You were excited while facing the unknown," said the woman with a predatory smile. "But facing me… you show fear."
"A possibility stays as such until someone appears in this godforsaken land," said Aiden with a forced smile as his eyes darted toward an escape route. "You ignored my question."
"Who am I?" asked the woman as she seemed to ponder aloud. "I am the person sent here to kill you."
Aiden felt his blood run cold as he heard her declaration. He wasted no time on chit-chats before bolting down the altar. Her laughs echoed behind him as he rolled on the ashen ground of the temple.
His memory kicked in. A fallen column, a gap in the altar wall — he ducked, slid, vanished behind rubble.
Brilliant light descended, shattering every place he tried to hide. Light hit, and he flew. Then slammed, and everything left his lungs.
"It seems that the summoning ritual was a failure," said the voice from above. Aiden raised his eyes to see her floating in the night sky with a grin. "A clan died for you. For that? You should've come with wings — not fear."
The woman spread her arms, summoning countless rays of light out of thin air. Aiden questioned whether he was hallucinating, but had no intentions on betting his life on that. His feet slipped on the ashen floor as he scurried away.
Light descended from the sky like the wrath of gods. It blasted everything in its path, destroying what little remained of the temple. Aiden felt like a leaf in a storm, his weight unable to keep him grounded.
In the end, a blast of light sent him falling down the stairs, rolling down countless steps before he managed to stop. Every bone in his body screamed in searing fire, telling him that his fall was not an easy one.
Aiden tried to push himself up.
He failed.
He tried again.
And failed again.
The woman's chuckles came from above him. His body was trembling. Ideas crashed into each other. Useless. Wild. None gave him a way out. In his most desperate moments, he thought about his earlier excitement.
Aiden realized he was a fool.
And not even a clever one.
Blood filled his vision as he stared at the sky. The woman hovered above him, carrying the face of angels but the heart of demons. Her hands weaved spears of light as she looked down at him.
"It is a shame," said the woman. "I thought that whoever this ritual summoned… would be a fun opponent. In the end, it failed, wasting centuries of preparations."
Aiden could feel the arrival of his imminent death. In its face, he was not proud nor defiant. He was desperate to survive. Aiden howled, but no voice came. He pushed him down the stairs, barely avoiding another blast of light.
Light struck. Mis swallowed him. Then— weightless. Like falling forever.
Every detail he had encountered in this temple was replayed in his mind. He looked for anything of use and discarded what was irrelevant. Before his body slammed to the ground, his eyes snapped open.
"The last shard falls when the seeker arrives," the words left his lips.
Aiden felt his body slam to the ground, rolling down a steep slope before it stopped. A maniacal laugh escaped his lips as the ancient runes pieced themselves together inside his mind.
Despite the pain tearing through his body, Aiden managed to rise from the ground. His body had nothing left. But something deeper — older — burned awake.
His eyes scanned the graveyard of bones beneath his feet. Creatures of darkness began rising from the mist, saying a multitude of things. The sounds grew louder as Aiden felt their presence grow closer.
"I need to reach the altar again," Aiden muttered as he stared above, and saw no light coming from the sky anymore. "She wants me dead. Fine. Let's make that difficult."
I refuse to perish like this.
Darkness rose. Lanky figures swarmed around Aiden, each holding jagged spears ready to tear him apart. Aiden paused. Then, he ran— or the closest thing he could do to running.
The mist churned. It blocked sight, but gave him shelter. Aiden ran through the folds, swimming in a world of whiteness. The dark creatures were slow. Aiden was lucky, despite the circumstances.
"I can hear you, struggling to survive. How does death look like?" the woman's voice came from above. It taunted him. Aiden felt like an ant being toyed by a ruthless child.
A spear emerged from the mist. Pain erupted from his shoulder. Aiden rolled on the ground, feeling the blood gushing down his arm. He raised his eyes, and then he saw it — half-man and half-darkness. The flesh was rotten, incomplete, and crumbling with each step the monster took. The missing gaps were replaced with a swirling darkness.
Aiden snapped his eyes open as the spear came down. He rolled. Missed. Then, he kicked, as strong as he could. The monster staggered backward, dropping its weapon. Aiden snatched the spear. In the next instant, the spear pierced the monster's head.
[You have defeated Mist Walker.]
[The Trait Cognitive Anchor has resisted soul corruption.]
[The Trait Displacement Instinct has registered a new weapon.]
[The weapon Voidbranch (Corrupted) has bonded to Aiden Valero.]
[Item: Voidbranch (Corrupted)]
[Type: Spear (Mistforged Relic)]
[Status: Corrupted | Dormant Bond (Active)]
[Description: A weapon born from mist, rot, and forgotten souls. The shaft resembles petrified bone, warped by corruption and stitched by veins of living mist. Its spearhead is a jagged fragment of void stone — unstable, but brutally effective. Voidbranch binds to displaced souls, recognizing their fracture and feeding on the space between what was and what is.]
[Warning: The corruption is dormant but not silent. Repeated kills using Voidbranch will influence the user's soul alignment.]
[Passive Ability:]
[Mist Cloak: While standing still within mist, smoke, or heavy obscuration, you become 40% harder to detect by enemies.]
[Corruption Effect:]
[Soul Stain: Each enemy defeated while wielding Voidbranch leaves a faint mark on the soul. Cognitive Anchor reduces, but does not negate, this effect.]
[Evolution Potential: Requires Purification (Holy Source) or Deepening Corruption (Void Source)]
[Notes: Mist creatures are more likely to recognize and respond to Voidbranch. Some structures, systems, and beings will react negatively to its presence.]
The spear pulsed against Aiden's palm — not with heat, but with a deep, throbbing cold that sank into his bones.
It wasn't made of wood or metal. The shaft was something older, something alive once but now rotted, its surface twisted and gnarled like the spine of a dead tree. Veins of dark mist slithered across it, seeping from cracks that bled nothing but silence.
At the top, where a spearhead should have gleamed, a jagged shard of black crystal jutted outward — fractured, cruel, humming faintly with a sound too low to hear, but too heavy to ignore.
Each time Aiden shifted his grip, the mist curled tighter along his fingers, as if the weapon recognized him, claimed him.
It was a broken thing. It was a living thing.
And now, they became two.